Harrenhal's Litter
by notreallycreative
Summary: It's not like anyone wants to be here. It's rather that the rest of the world doesn't want you.


**Disclaimer: I disclaim. Not mine.**

Harrenhal used to have greatness in itself, Mrs. Smallwood always says. It was supposed to become the largest city in Westeros. That is, of course, before the bombings started, and the so called "City of the Future" was turned into ruins.

Even knowing the ending of that story, Gendry cannot help but doubt the beginning. Harrenhal is but a big mess full of partly destroyed houses and dirty streets covered in rubble after rubble. There hasn't been any bombings in years, since such weapons have been forbidden, to be exact, but nobody has come to clean the town up. It's probably considered beyond repair.

"Don't go to the most ruined parts", he told his friend Nan, shortly after her arrival to the city, when she still expected to find some old coins and jewelry. "All valuable things have already been taken. Besides, it's almost certain you'll stumble into a couple of corpses."

He doesn't tell her of how he did, once. When Lommy was still alive, they would often play in the hills of dross. That is, until they found a long, grey braid sticking out from under the bricks, most likely still attached to the owner's head. It was their last visit to the rubble.

A week after he warned Nan, however, he sees her atop it. Of course she didn't listen. Her father comes, half-drunk, yelling at his daughter to "quit being a little idiot and go the fuck home". He's a giant of a man, half of his face burned to the bone and as foul in character as he is ugly. But neither Nan nor Weasel ever bear homemade bruises, so frequent in Gendry's town.

He still hates the man, though. Not that that makes him any original. Everybody hates him. Especially Nan. She calls him father as if it were an insult.

Mrs. Smallwood tells him it's not noble to hate, but he doesn't care. He is fifteen and an orphan and several people have already tried to kill him. He is fifteen and he's seen too many of his friends die. He is fifteen and he lives in a shanty with twenty other children and it is a shitty life he's living. He can hate a vile drunk if he wants to. Even if the said drunk's daughter is his best friend.

It starts on a dry, chilly afternoon, when he comes to the hut Nan lives in with her family. Her father is sprawled on the floor in front of the couch; he greets Gendry with a scowl before returning to his drink.

Nan lives with her sister Weasel in the other room, smaller, but not as smelly. A cot in the corner is covered with a couple of blankets. Next to it lie several books, most of them from Mrs. Smallwood, who always insists the children of Harrenhal get some proper education. Apart from that, there is also an old wardrobe with a broken mirror, hiding the rest of their possessions. In the first couple of months after she moved in, Nan would always warn him not to touch the closet, as if it hid a monster, so he learned to avoid it.

He looks down and sees Weasel chewing on a piece of an apple. She's staring at him from the cot with big, watery eyes. When they met she used to cry all the time, to the point, where Nan had to argue with their father about keeping her with them. Gendry still remembers the shouting.

The door closes behind him and his friend eyes him suspiciously.

"Something new?"

He hands her the newspaper. It's almost always just a bunch of political bullshit, something no normal person would ever consider interesting, but Nan drinks in all the information there is like a person dying of thirst. Gendry doesn't know why and doesn't ask, either. He supposes he wouldn't want to know.

"See for yourself."

It takes her only a couple of seconds to realize what he's talking about.

"Shit! That motherfucking prick!"

Weasel looks up, not really fazed (Gendry guesses living with certain people has been quite a way to get used to all the yelling), snatching the rest of the fruit from her sister's plate. Nan doesn't seem to notice.

Joffrey Baratheon, Robert Baratheon's heir, is dead.

"Aren't you… I don't know. Happy? You hated the idiot, remember? More than anyone else."

But, to his astonishment, the girl ignores him, storming of to the other room. She shoves the paper into her father's face.

"Have you seen this? He died! He died and now we won't find out if he has her. The others won't be stupid enough to tell us."

The man reads the article with eyes as wide as hers. They're both unnaturally shocked. Sure, the death of Westerosi "leader" is nothing insignificant, but hardly anyone besides the Brotherhood gives it so much attention. These two, however, are moved beyond logic.

"They say Sansa Stark was involved. Sure. The little bird is less likely to have done it than Weasel."

"She run away. Maybe this is her destination. No better place to hide than Harrenhal."

A drunken cackle resounds. "Don't count on it, girl. She'll have a nice escort to yet another cage and that'll be the end of it."

Suddenly they both spot Gendry, as if they've forgotten of him. Nan glances at her father, biting her lip.

He leaves at once. When he's already on the street, the familiar shouts start once more. At the sound of a bottle thrown against a wall, he gets to the main square in the Ghost District.

It is the beginning, but a one he couldn't be less aware of.

Ironically, it isn't anyone smart who hits the bull's-eye. It may be because no one like Thoros or Beric would ever pay attention to some family that's lived in Harrenhal for over three years and is just as dysfunctional as any other. It may be because people like Jeyne Heddle and Mrs. Smallwood have a hundred things to do every minute of their existence and, therefore, no time to ponder on what isn't crucial. And so, it is Hot Pie who says the words, without even realizing how right he is.

"Better don't get close to her father, or you'll end up with something broken. I'm telling you, he looks almost as terrifying as The Hound, that traitor bodyguard. He had his face burned too, I heard."

Hot Pie continues kneading bread, but Gendry stares at him, understanding.

It's almost ridiculous. How many people there are with faces burned so much you can see the bone on their chin?

That day he waits until Sandor Clegane leaves before visiting Nan. Who knows what he thought of him after the last time he was there?

His friend is cutting Weasel's hair when he comes in.

"Is he really your father?", he asks. The fact that he knows the answer is irrelevant. What he wants to know isn't whether the girls are Cleagane's daughters. He needs to see if Nan will lie.

In silence, she gets up from the cot and opens the wardrobe.

"Here", she mutters, shoving a box in his arms. Before he gets to open it, she whispers something else.

"Arya. My name is Arya Stark and he could _never_ be my father."

It's a strange world he lives in.

His best friend is Arya Stark and her pretended father is The Hound. They collect all the information on the war that is raging between the Families. He wants to hate her for that, for wanting people dead, people who just happened to be born in the wrong city. For planning to kill Cersei Lannister and all those others. For allying with The Hound. For being who she is.

But she also happens to be his friend. She took care of Weasel, who was one of the little people, just like him. And, when you get down to it, she just wants her sister back. "MISSING" posters of Sansa Stark suddenly appear everywhere. Willow brings a dozen to their shelter and teaches the kids to inform her or Jeyne immediately if they see the girl, but none of them ever do. Arya grows restless watching their friends talk about the recent events. She needs to do something, Gendry knows, but they're all out of ideas.

War continues and three months later Bella comes back to town with all her co-workers, after their previous establishment has been burned down. He introduces her to Arya, the only one of his friends who hasn't met her yet, and they seem to like each other well enough. Tansy starts a new strip club on the main square and calls it Acorn Hall. Time moves on and Gendry starts to live with Arya, Weasel and The Hound after Jeyne takes in another two lost children; like the crowd they've collected so far wasn't enough. Bella offered to find a cot for him in her workplace, but he is so awkward around most women that he chooses to live with The Hound instead. His sister can't stop laughing when he gives her the explanation. He isn't angry with her, though, not until she tells Arya. That one doesn't stop teasing him for ages.

Somehow, the one to support their substitute of a family is actually Sandor Clegane. Gendry doesn't know how exactly does he get the money, only that he travels for it to other districts. The only thing Arya ever tells him is that "he doesn't steal from _normal_ people". It's not what he'd like to hear, but they manage to survive because of that money, so the conversation is done. Still, he promises himself to find an honest job as soon as it's possible.

He's given one two weeks after he becomes sixteen. Tom O'Seven shows him a tiny, old radio station the Brotherhood hopes to use. They hire him to get it to work, as he was once taught by Tobho Mott. He drags Arya along to help him and they work as she considers all the ways to find her sister. It's been a year since Sansa's disappearance, but she never lets it go.

"We won't accomplish anything without moving our asses around", she always complains. (Of course they won't. That's how Harrenhal works: it devours you until you realize you've spent years living under its shadow. And you don't ever live this place.) "It's stupid. Maybe we should get a car. There should be some wrecks lying around. A truck. We would drive through the country and look for my sister."

Gendry keeps working and wonders whether he's a part of that "we".

Shortly after, it's Arya's thirteenth birthday, so they visit the Gods Eye lake to celebrate it, taking a couple of friends with them. Bella and Jeyne bring some slightly overripe oranges and Arya fails to relax, especially after Weasel attempts to swim and almost drowns. But she doesn't mention Sansa the whole day, and Gendry tries to imagine that it's not because they're surrounded by people who don't know her secret.

He knows the truth, though.

They never leave to look for Sansa Stark. Almost six months after Arya's birthday, her sister comes to Harrenhal instead. And, to their horror, she is not alone.

A couple of years earlier, when Joffrey was just beginning to rule Westeros, he brought Harrenhal and the lands surrounding it under Petyr Baelish's wing. It was little more than a label since, officially, the city did not function. Therefore the man known widely as Littlefinger (or Middlefinger, as Anguy used to call him) had hardly bothered to visit his property. Until now.

They are outside Sharna's bakery, trying to earn a couple of extra pennies by repainting her front wall, when a car stops by. There are less than fifty working vehicles in the whole city of Harrenhal, so naturally they both have to take a look.

This car, however, is nothing like those rusty, old carts Amory Lorch and his men use. It's looks new and polished and expensive, so unlike anything else around it.

The girl who leaves it, however, seems to match it quite perfectly.

She is much cleaner than either of them and had she sold the things she's wearing she could probably feed all the kids at Jeyne's for a week. It's ridiculous and Gendry instantly decides to hate her.

Arya, however, is gaping like a madwoman.

He doesn't understand why. Doesn't she remember that kind of luxury from her younger years? She was one of _them_ too only four years ago, after all. But then he glances at that girl again.

It's her. Sansa Stark has come to Harrenhal.

She doesn't seem to notice them, getting inside the shop without looking to her sides and Gendry imagines that she's probably too blue blooded to defile her vision like that. It's always like that with those people.

That's when he notices that the elderly man behind the wheel has most likely been staring at them for quite some time.

"Nan," he hisses at Arya, who looks ready to jump after her stupid sister. She finally looks at him, seeming to regain consciousness.

"What?"

"It's lunchtime," he lies, dragging her behind the bakery. She looks furious, but doesn't protest. As soon as they're out of sight, however, she starts running, so fast that he loses her after five minutes of manoeuvring through the ruins. He knows perfectly well where she's going, though.

As he reaches the house it strikes him how unusually silent it is, to the point where he fears they might've packed and left him alone (well, he wouldn't mind if the Hound did just that). But, when entering, he hears their hushed voices. Both of them are sitting on the floor by the coffee table, pointing into different places on a map.

"You said she's probably with the Tyrells, or the Imp!" he hears Arya whisper angrily.

Neither of them react when he comes in, so Gendry heads to the second bedroom for his nicer jacket. He'll visit Bella. Maybe at least she somewhat cares about his existence.

"Where are you going, stupid?"

He turns back to look at the two. Arya is staring at him, the grumpy look still present on her face.

"To Acorn Hall," he explains, though, really, why should he? He doesn't owe her any of that.

Sandor snickers.

"Let him go, girl. The kid needs to see some flesh."

Gendry feels his face going red, redder than the Hound's burns and this time Arya gives them both a dark look, before turning to Clegane.

"That's not what he means, idiot," she snaps. "His sister works in there. Gendry doesn't want to watch strippers."

He turns redder yet, but his friend has already moved on to the next subject.

"We'll see Bella some other time. Now it's time to plan. You have to help us."

For some reason those words make him smile. He sits by her side studying the map of Harrenhal. Maybe he was wrong to judge Sansa so fast.

It takes them two days to locate Littlefinger and his people. They have settled in Kingspyre District, the largest of them all, and Sansa is among them. She stays in one of the nicest apartments and Bealish doesn't let anybody touch her. Three more days and Arya reveals her secret to Hot Pie, after she finds out her sister regularly visits Sharna's bakery. He's the one to find out that Sansa Stark has become Alayne Baelish, a natural daughter of Middlefinger, recently found.

Gendry wonders how much does she enjoy being a bastard.

He sees her a few more times, when finishing painting the wall. He's alone then. (Clegane has forbidden Arya from working outside of their district and, probably for the first and last time in his life, Gendry had to agree with the Hound. Petyr Baelish's people started to appear in most districts, only omitting theirs as the most destroyed one.) The driver is always the same old man with a hooked nose as before and Gendry realizes he must be more of a guard, really. The girl probably never goes anywhere without him. Taking the city they're in, it's probably the only logical thing to do, but it may slow them down when their plan comes into fruition (whatever it is. They haven't exactly come up with anything that has even the slightest hope of succeeding).

As Sansa comes back from the shop he watches her from the corner of his eye. She's very pretty, with nice dark brown hair (though Arya claims they're dyed and actually auburn) and a gentle smile on her lips that makes her look slightly sad. It takes him a moment to realize why does it seem familiar. She never looks harmed and her clothes remain clean and untorn, he hasn't noticed any bruises or cigarette burns, but he's lived his whole life around abusive households, and knows how to recognize their victim. It may be why he eventually decides to accept her. That and the fact, that she actually appears not to be as pretentious as he had thought her to be. The third time around she even nods his way when passing by and continues to do so ever since. Sansa Stark is the epitome of pleasantness.

He still doesn't like her that much, though. Especially since she's the only thing Arya now talks about. She hasn't visited Jeyne and Willow in a month.

And then someone knocks on their door on a chilly morning, six weeks after Littlefinger and Sansa's arrival. All of them, even Weasel, are woken up and on their feet in seconds, knives in hands. Clegane grabs his ugly shotgun, aiming for the door. They've all expected this to happen and no citizen of Harrenhal is up and visiting at 4:50.

Arya opens the door. Behind them is a tall smiling woman.

She smiles slightly less when she see them.

"I… I'm a friend of Alayne's. My name is Mya Stone."

They tell her to sit on the couch. She does, glancing at them curiously.

"You're the Hound" she suddenly realizes, finally showing some sort of anxiety. "Why would Alayne know the Hound?"

"She wouldn't." Arya's voice quivers slightly and she crosses her arms, trying to take on a more confident pose. "Why are you here, Mya?"

The girl sighs, obviously still uncertain. Gendry decides it's quite understandable, but both Arya and Sandor seem to have little patience for Mya Stone, something she quickly realizes.

"She sent me here. Said I need to find the girl he – she nodded her head at Gendry – painted the wall with the first time she appeared at that bakery in Widow's District. So I followed him home one day. You match the description: small, short brown hair, dark grey eyes, pale."

"It is me." Arya's left hand grabs the knife once more, but she doesn't seem to notice it. "What does she say?"

"Of course I knew who you are. I am very happy you are well, since I have feared the worst. I love you. Stay safe. I hope we meet again soon."

Arya almost falls down on her way to hug Mya like she had just saved her life and Gendry decides to dislike Sansa Stark once more. He meets Clegane's eye, but then the man looks back at the woman and, suddenly, he understands him a little bit more.

None of them is sure, but Gendry knows Arya wants nothing more than to trust Mya Stone. She goes back to Sharna's, ignoring their words, or the fact that there's no work for them there anymore. He asks Hot Pie to keep an eye on her, but the boy is miserable at the job.

Still, days and weeks go by, Arya spends hours stalking her sister just to get a discreet nod from the girl, and there is still no way to rescue the elder Stark from Petyr Baelish. He can see how that influences more and more jumpy Arya, Clegane, who now barely has time to steal them money for basic needs, and even Weasel, whose sixth birthday had come and go without anybody noticing. Mya visits them one more time, bringing a lemon cake that almost makes Arya cry, and saying that "she knows what she's doing, don't worry" to which Sandor Clegane snorts and asks if she's sure she isn't Littlefinger's spy after all.

Amory Lorch and his men leave, annoyed at Baelish, and that is what helps them more than anything they've done before.

Petyr Baelish might have the ownership of the city, but it is them who know Harrenhal best, with all its secrets and forgotten glory. And sure, Kingspyre is not their district, but that matters not. They are the children to ruins and, therefore, understand them better than anyone else. And two months after Lorch's departure Arya finds a passage to Sansa's tower, half buried in rubble. She smiles wider than ever when she tells him of it, not even remembering it's the day before her birthday and he gets a weird feeling in his stomach when hugging her. He spends the night imagining what would have happened had Arya just been Nan and ends up a bit more than confused. Before they can do anything, however, Mya visits them in the middle of a night.

"They're leaving," she announces. "Right now, as I speak. She told me you're not to follow her, wherever it is she's going. She will be protected, I promise. There are people who love her all around."

Gendry thinks of the delicate smile, ever present on Sansa's face. He wonders whether Mya Stone knows what it actually means.

"She will be back, though?"

Both Arya and Clegane look at him, startled. It is usually one of them who inquires about Sansa and her wellbeing. He avoids their stares.

Mya nods, smiling slightly. She probably assumes he fancies her friend, like all the boys in the Kingspyre District.

"Within three months."

Arya doesn't talk much until they're back in their room, lying in one cot so they don't wake Weasel up.

"It's like he knew," she whispers, closing her eyes. Her eyelashes are really long. "D'you think he does? What if his men are on their way here right now? Sansa wouldn't know of it and neither would Mya. Oh Gods, what if they hurt one of them? He could hurt Sansa. He could."

Gendry needs to tell her. Somehow it feels like he knows that girl, Alayne Baelish, better than her own sister does. He understands. Sansa Stark has nothing to lose.

"It's probably just a coincidence. She'll be back and once she is here, we'll get her out. Don't worry."

It's then that Arya Stark turns her head towards him, making Gendry feel uneasy under her stare.

"You asked… I didn't know you cared."

She doesn't know, he reminds himself. Sure, she's lived a life of a gutter rat for the last four years, but it matters less than he'd always wanted to believe. Her family wasn't one of those. She saw her beloved sister, not a victim of constant abuse.

He glances at Weasel.

"We need to talk. Outside, maybe."

"Do you like my sister?"

Those words are a bit too loud and Gendry gapes at her in shock. Arya shrugs.

"I mean, that's understandable. She's very beautiful, and sweet too, everyone always says so. You'd be a fool not to like her." She doesn't look at him as she says so. He snorts, taking his friend's hand and hoisting her up. They walk out the door, sitting by a ruined wall nearby.

"I don't like your sister," he explains. "I mean, she's pretty, I guess, but…" he feels himself get red with embarrassment. It's not really a topic he feels comfortable with. "I just don't, alright? It's not like that."

She doesn't understand so he tells her, as delicately as he can, of what he suspects, of what he _knows_. It was awful to think about it being possible, but it is even more awful to watch Arya as the realization dawns on her, as the horror appears on her face. She wants to run to Sansa at once.

It's too late.

When he finally catches up to her, she's sitting in the middle of the main square in front of the building Sansa's lived in, holding a small, portable radio.

"I found it with this." She hands him a piece of paper.

"Lady Nymeria conquered Dorne with her husband Mors Martell and-" he reads out loud. It looks like a piece of a page from some history book. He doesn't see what she so obviously does. "And it means...?"

She sighs.

"There was no _lady_ Nymeria. Someone must've made a mistake when writing the book. She was a warrior queen – I must've told you of her, didn't I? Nymeria, the Rhoynar queen from the legends. I named my dog after her."

Arya looks down at the radio and he notices that she grips it so tight, her fingers had gone white.

"Lady was the name of Sansa's dog. Lady and Nymeria. Maybe it's nothing, truly, but…"

He sits next to her.

"It's not nothing. Your sister is smart, much smarter than she seems. She's fighting him any way she can."

"But what if she loses?"

It's a question he has no answer for.

Arya keeps checking the radio. It drives him insane until he realizes how much they learn of the outside world thanks to it. The war rages on and a month later Aegon Targaryen wins a battle with Kevan Lannister (by witchcraft and treachery, says KL FM, by Gods' right, say the stations belonging to the resistance). Thousands die that day and he wonders who started the whole thing, who wanted such things to happen. Whoever that was, Gendry hates them.

Three months pass and turn into six and Sansa doesn't return. Neither does Petyr Baelish of Amory Lorch. Nobody comes back and Gendry reminds himself what he had almost forgotten: you don't return to a cage if you've managed to escape it. Harrenhal is a prison in itself and if you become a part of it, the city won't let you go.

And it's not like anyone _wants_ to be here. It's rather that the rest of the world doesn't want _you_.

He's out with Bella, looking for something cheap and nice at the same time that he can give Weasel for her seventh birthday, when they come across his old workplace and, suddenly, he remembers.

He runs home so fast he almost collapses breathless at their front door when he gets there. Arya looks at him, startled.

"Is everything alright?" she asks reaching for her small knife, as Gendry waits for his pulse to slow down. He nods frantically, confusing her even more.

The radio stands on the coffee table. He picks it up, looking for the right station. He can't tell her, not yet, not until he knows for sure…

"I urge you all now to remember what you fight for: peace, home, your loved ones. Let us remember what war truly is – destruction. Let us only try to achieve things that are worth – " Gendry stops hearing the radio. He knows everything he needed to know. All that matters is the look on Arya's face.

"Is it…?"

"The Brotherhood," he confirms. "It's their main station, somewhere in the Riverlands, not sure where exactly. She's with them."

Thoros hasn't visited Harrenhal much since Beric Dondarrion's death two months ago, but he did mention something about having "a lady on the lead". They should've known.

Sansa Stark had outsmarted them all.

Another month passes and Mya appears exactly on Arya's fifteenth birthday. The Hound isn't at their hut and the woman wants to talk to Arya alone. He cooks dinner while they talk, intending to leave something for the rest, but he is so nervous, the whole dinner is consumed by him and Weasel within minutes. As he curses his stupidity, the girls reappear again. Arya grins at him, as Mya puts on her coat and he relaxes. It's fine. Everything is fine.

It's late at night when she tells him all of it, as they lay on their cot.

"She wants to see me. It wasn't possible before, but now she wants us to meet her somewhere west. We have to go see her. She'll send us a car next week."

Gendry smiles. He might not know a lot of things – who the warrior queen Nymeria was, for example, or if he'll ever have the guts to actually kiss Arya Stark – but one thing he knows for certain: he is very much a part of that 'we'.

**To clear things up: the age gap between Arya and Gendry here is three years. They meet at ten and thirteen and the story ends when they're fifteen and eighteen.**


End file.
